What Are the Benefits and Drawbacks of Performing Sit-Ups?
Doing sit-ups can effectively exercise abdominal muscles. For women, doing sit-ups can promote abdominal blood circulation, thus treating and relieving gynecological diseases. However, incorrect posture or excessive force during sit-ups can cause damage to the cervical spine.
Sit-ups are a method to develop trunk muscle strength and flexibility, which can effectively exercise abdominal muscles. Tightening abdominal muscles can better protect the organs within the abdominal cavity. For women, doing sit-ups with knees bent can exercise the groin area. The groin area contains many capillaries and acupuncture points, and doing sit-ups can stimulate the blood vessels, promote abdominal blood circulation, and thus treat and relieve gynecological diseases. Additionally, sit-ups can stretch the back muscles, ligaments, and spine, helping to regulate the central nervous system.
Incorrect posture or excessive force during sit-ups can cause harm to the body. The most common harm is damage to the cervical spine. Overusing the cervical spine while doing sit-ups can cause the second vertebra of the cervical spine to protrude forward, leading to compression and stretching of the cervical nerve roots, which can result in pain, numbness, dizziness, and headache in the upper arms. This is due to incorrect methods and techniques used during sit-ups that stretch and compress the cervical spine.
If sit-ups are performed incorrectly without using the bilateral rectus abdominis, transversus abdominis, and internal oblique muscles, excessive use of the lumbar spine can lead to lumbar disc herniation, causing compression of the lumbar intervertebral disc and resulting in numbness, pain, and other harms to the sciatic nerve and lower limbs.
